I would definitely say I got more bang for my buck with Disney+. And there were some surprises out there – things I wasn’t expecting to see on the new streaming service, f’rinstance.
As promised, my first view on the new Disney+ service was the 1980’s movie Tron. I mean, that was a given.
But what do you do after that?
Well … being a child of the Star Wars films, I had to check out The Mandlorian, the new Disney+ “space western” which brought us a bounty hunter in full Boba Fett gear.
And I have to say … it was pretty damn good. Enough so that I added it as a “listed favorite” on the streaming service.
Then I tried to find out how far I could “deep dive” into Disney history. And sure enough, you could actually watch Disney’s first synchronized sound cartoon, Steamboat Willie. By the way, if you want to win a bar trivia contest with this knowledge, the name Steamboat Willie relates to another film from that era, Buster Keaton’s Steamboat Bill, Jr..
Now I could have completed another deep dive and watched one of the most innovative Disney films ever, Fantasia – but instead, I went with its sequel, Fantasia 2000 – and man, I’m glad I did. Between the Al Hirschfeld meets George Gershwin “Rhapsody in Blue” segment, the Shostakovich-inspired “Steadfast Tin Soldier” piece, and the Igor Stravinsky “Firebird” closer … wows. Just serious wows. How did I not see this film when it originally came out?
I decided to check out the channel’s Marvel Comics category, and after watching a couple of episodes of “Marvel Uprising” – which featured the characters Squirrel Girl and Spider-Gwen / Ghost Spider – I tried out a couple of the Marvel cartoons from the 1990’s, the animated X-Men and an animated Avengers series. Yep, looked just like what I was used to seeing back in the day.
One final deep dive. If this thing had all things Mickey-related … what are the chances they might have old black-and-white episodes of the Mickey Mouse Club?
Well, there are five Mickey Mouse Club episodes available for streaming, and – wait, they’re an hour long apiece? And they have an extended introduction? And they left in the parts about the show being sponsored by Coca-Cola and Betty Crocker?
Ho … lee … cow …
Now granted, the Disney+ streaming service is also MISSING a lot of things. If you signed up for it to see Song of the South, you wasted your money, it’s not there. Zorro’s not here, either, which is a bummer. And it’s got MOST of the Star Wars films, but not all of them. Its Marvel content includes a lot of TV shows, but not everything – you can’t find the 1970’s Incredible Hulk or the Japanese Super Sentai Supaidaman import, but hey, there’s a lot of stuff here as it is.
So maybe tonight I’ll check out the new Mandalorian episode, and then pair it with … oh, I don’t know … maybe The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes or one of the other Medfield College comedies? Heck, I might even be able to pull a segment for my “Royale with Cheese Movie Club” blog series – you know, the films everyone else in the world has seen (except me)?
Let’s see where this takes us … shall we?
